Recently, I attended a photography workshop titled “Uncanny.” The photos here were taken in connection with the workshop.
The uncanny is a concept that describes a feeling of discomfort arising from the interplay between the real and the unreal. It was particularly explored by the Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud in his 1919 essay “Das Unheimliche.”
At the core of the uncanny is the experience that something familiar and normal suddenly reveals a hidden strangeness or distortion, creating an unsettling sensation. This occurs when the boundaries between the real and the unreal become blurred.
The uncanny challenges our perception of reality by blending the familiar with the unfamiliar in a way that destabilizes our sense of security. This experience creates a feeling of discomfort because it forces us to confront the fact that our safe and known world may contain hidden elements of strangeness and danger.
The three pictures above were my attempt to combine the familiar and real with something unreal and unexpected. It is definitely a field I want to explore further in the future.